1. Field of the Invention
The invention concerns personal care disposable towelette articles delivering on one side thereof a personal care composition.
2. The Related Art
A variety of personal care products are now commercially available in towelette applied form. Hair grooming compositions, antiperspirant/deodorant formulas and facial cleansers are delivered through transfer from disposable cloths.
A series of patent documents have described disposable personal cleansing products in the form of substantially dry woven or non-woven cloths onto which are deposited cleansing compositions that include surfactant, structurant, skin conditioning agents and other performance ingredients. The technology is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,951,991 (Wagner et al.), U.S. Pat. No. 5,980,931 (Fowler et al.) and WO 99/55303 (Albacarys et al.).
More complicated substrate cloths are described in a second wave of documents including: WO 01/08542 A1 (Cen et al.), WO 01/08655 A1 (Phipps et al.), WO 01/08656 A1 (Smith et al.), WO 01/08657 A1 (Lorenzi et at.) and WO 01/08658 A1 (Cawkwell et al.), all to Procter and Gamble. These documents extend the wipe technology to bonded double layer substrates of contrasting textural properties. A rougher of the two sides may act as a gripping surface while the smoother side may be used for delivering cleansing aids. The articles are described as being substantially dry defined as a Moisture Retention ratio of less than 0.95 gms.
A feature of most of the aforementioned technology is that these articles are not ready to use. They require the addition of external water to initiate foaming of surfactants on the cloths. Moreover, the impregnated compositions often are deposited at least to some extent on both sides of the substrate cloth. Even if deposited only on one surface, the cloths are desirably engineered to include apertures that assist with generating foam. These apertures readily allow migration of impregnated personal care composition from one side to the other of the substrate cloth. See U.S. Pat. No. 6,280,757 B1 (McAtee et al.) which specifies a non-woven substrate of particular aperture sizes and distribution.
Not all personal care wiping articles need be activated with external water. U.S. Pat. No. 6,103,644 (Sheridan) describes an impregnated matrix which can be used without addition of external water. Various emollients, lubricants, surface protectants and medicaments are formulated into the impregnated compositions.
Besides the “dry” wipe technology as represented by the above disclosures, there is an even more extensive body of technology related to wet wipe articles. Representative of this technology is U.S. Pat. No. 6,287,582 B1 (Gott et at.) and U.S. Pat. No. 6,294,182 B1 (Znaiden et at.) which describe disposable towelettes impregnated with solutions having greater than 80% water. The towelettes on all sides are wetted with the cosmetic solutions and seated within plastic packets to avoid solvent evaporation.
Both the fully dry and the wet towelette technology has advantages and disadvantages. Dry articles require external water. Wet articles cause all of a user's fingers to be soiled with impregnated composition. For many types of formulations, a user may wish to avoid finger contact with the compositions. This is especially so where relatively oily materials are to be transferred. A user may seek to deliver the personal care composition directly to a skin or hair surface but still desire to keep the hands clean. This problem is not addressed by the known technology.